Richmond American Homes...good Or Bad? (Tucson: sale, new house, construction)

[LasVegasLemonade]

Think twice before buying a Richmond American Home. See these websites and homeowner advocacy groups created as a result of poorly constructed homes by Richmond American.
Las Vegas Lemonade, Homeowner Advocates
Neighborhoods for Quality Homes
Richmond American Destroys Dreams

[Ahoy]

This is a builder whose initial response to any issue you might have is to avoid taking responsibility for it. They only reluctantly fix an issue if they have exhausted all possible way to avoid taking responsibility for it. I own a RAH with 5200+ sq ft living area and my home was installed with a 200 amp electrical panel which has been determined to be inadequate for a house of that size with three AC systems and other amenities. I am now required to spend about $5000 to upgrade my panel to a 400 amp so that I can have a pool and spa installed. I should not be doing this kind of upgrade in a house I just bought less than one year ago and paid more than half a million for. I wish I saw the JD Power report that ranked them almost dead last on customer satisfaction before I signed a contract with them. I would not use them to build my dog house.

[june]

Originally Posted by gerrynyc

My real estate agent suggested them, because she thought that i'd like their floor plans (which I do). Has anyone ever dealt with them? I'm interested in their Queen Creek communities.

i was just their in queen Creek veiwing the Richmond homes for myself gotta jump on those prices for those beautiful homes, my cousin just bought a Richmond in Queen Creek it so beautiful she paid 153000 for 2 floors same home on Long Island is 750,000 dollars. Im going with Richmond also cause he gives a nice size lot.

[sierraAZ]

Originally Posted by LasVegasLemonade

Think twice before buying a Richmond American Home. See these websites and homeowner advocacy groups created as a result of poorly constructed homes by Richmond American.
Las Vegas Lemonade, Homeowner Advocates
Neighborhoods for Quality Homes
Richmond American Destroys Dreams

Well, there are sites like this for just about every builder... It's true that some suck worse than others.

[kacharles]

We almost bought a Richmond American home in CA. Thank God we didn't. We ended up looking for something else after we discovered that the "spectacular, large" lot the RA people told us we were paying a premium for turned out to be one upon which we couldn't build a pool in the back behind the house, couldn't landscape behind the house and so on. We have spoken to others in the community who wished they hadn't purchased a home from RA either. Nothing but problems. RA still refuses to refund our nearly 25K deposit. In our opinion, their conduct was illegal and fraud. We'd advise anyone looking at RA to stay away!!!!!!!!!!

[UtahHome]

Originally Posted by marilyn olinger

RAH will do anything to get your business but once you close, they treat you like dirt. I have had over 80 problems with home, 3 complaints to ROC, almost 2 years and still have issues.

Have you ever heard of stucco falling off the house just from the elements. Mine did. 30%, took months of debate. To top it off they wanted to spot paint after repair. More months of debate. My gas plumb for barbeque was an 8 inch pipe that went no where. Just a taste.


failed promises, lies, deceit, anything to avoid responsibility.

Like their floor plans but go somewhere else.

I totally agree, once you sign, you're done. I received assurances on my final walk through that all of my discrepencies would be taken care of within a week. I didn't hear from anyone for a week and a half and then called the assistant superintendant myself. Like others that have posted comments here, we are waiting for decisions to be made by "someone" at Richmond American. I also discovered that the construction superintendants are not required to hold a contractors license. This explains a lot. If you build with Richmond you must watch them constantly. Since the "leaders" of the construction department have no or little constuction knowledge, it is up to the buyer to identify problems and bring them to their attention. Of course that doesn't mean they will address your concerns. Good luck to all who build with Richmond American.

[UtahHome]

We feel your pain. Once our foundation was "finally" poured we were expecting walls to be build within a week or so. Instead, we were lead to believe that there was something wrong with our foundation that required the removal of a wall and re-pouring. After several weeks of "reengineering", our walls were poured on the existing foundation. Our superintendant was promoted (Peter principal) and the new superintendant informed us that our foundation was fine and that they had just built the wrong one. They had poured the foundation with the "extended" familyroom which we didn't order. AGAIN poor supervision of the "sub-contractors". After weeks of delays, Richmond decided to give us the addition at no charge (I would hope not). We would NOT recommend Richmond American to any friend either.

[GT350]

I just looked at that builder/customer satisfaction list and really have to disagree with some of them. Pulte is always in the news with some problem or another. I find it very hard to believe they're in the top 3, let alone above Fulton. As for Taylor Woodrow, you can't buy an entry level home from them. You must buy additional upgrades just to make it livable. And Brown Family used to make great homes when they were Dave Brown builders. I have one and it's an outstanding home with a great uncommon layout. As for Beazer...I'm surprised they're third from the bottom...they should be last. But also keep in mind this list is for new homes and probably a 6mo to 12mo survey.

[tomdow1]

I bought a new spec house from RA in Tanglewood Preserve near Tampa, Fl in Oct 2007. It's a 2350 SF with a bonus room upstairs. Problem is - there is only one AC unit to cool the upstairs and downstairs. There is an AC duct up in the bonus room, but no thermostat up there to tell the AC when to cut on. The only thermostat is downstairs where it is normally cool. I keep the AC on 78 degrees. However, the upstairs bonus room gets up to 92 deg. during the daytime - the ac will not cut on til the downstairs temp gets up to 78 deg. I have requested the AC company remove the unit and install a split system(small unit for the upstairs and larger unit downstairs). The AC company wants to band aid the existing system and RA wont back me up. RA is now building new homes like mine with split AC systems in them. I have had problems with other things and RA has not fixed them yet(going on 3 months). I would not recommend RA homes to anyone!! Tom In Tampa...

[Roselvr]

Originally Posted by tomdow1

I bought a new spec house from RA in Tanglewood Preserve near Tampa, Fl in Oct 2007. It's a 2350 SF with a bonus room upstairs. Problem is - there is only one AC unit to cool the upstairs and downstairs. There is an AC duct up in the bonus room, but no thermostat up there to tell the AC when to cut on. The only thermostat is downstairs where it is normally cool. I keep the AC on 78 degrees. However, the upstairs bonus room gets up to 92 deg. during the daytime - the ac will not cut on til the downstairs temp gets up to 78 deg. I have requested the AC company remove the unit and install a split system(small unit for the upstairs and larger unit downstairs). The AC company wants to band aid the existing system and RA wont back me up. RA is now building new homes like mine with split AC systems in them. I have had problems with other things and RA has not fixed them yet(going on 3 months). I would not recommend RA homes to anyone!! Tom In Tampa...

Tom, since it's a spec house, is it possible that back then it was an option that whoever originally configured the house didn't upgrade?